Emotion, thought, and therapy

Abstract

Hume and Spinoza are the most systematic representatives of two opposing traditions of argument about the relation of thought and feeling in the emotions. The Humeans treat emotions as essentially feelings (impressions or affects) with thoughts incidentally attached. The Spinozists say roughly the reverse, treating emotions as essentially thoughts ('ideas' or 'beliefs') with feelings incidentally attached. It is argued that the Spinozists are closer to the truth, that is, that thoughts are of greater importance than feelings fin the narrow sense of felt sensations) in the classification and discrimination of emotional states. It is then argued that if the Spinozists are closer to the truth, we have the beginning of an argument to show that Freudian or, more generally, analytic therapies make philosophic sense. That is, we can begin to understand how people's emotional lives might be trans- formed by consideration and interpretation of their memories, beliefs, etc.; how knowledge might help make one free. [continued in text ...]</p